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Wow – that’s never happened before. Wealthy New Yorkers of a certain age moving down to Florida, where homestead rules and other regulations are lax, taxes are low, and weather is mild? My sweet God, this is a blockbuster! People moving out of New York!?

Look – Golisano says he’ll save $13,000 per day in taxes by moving to Florida.

Obviously, New York has been brutally disastrous to Mr. Golisano, given that his income is such that he has to pay $13,000 per day in taxes.

OK, now who is going to come up with the 4,745,000 in taxes that Golisano will no longer be paying? Anyone? Anyone? This is the real world people. If you raise the cost of something, you sell less of it. Same happens with taxes. If you raise them, people will leave. What happens when the next ‘rich’ person decides to go to Florida? And the next?

Eisenbart –
Tom does not own NY anything?
Really, does the public money that goes into HSBC arena? All of the police and infrastructure that makes the Sabres possible. He pays for that out of this pocket?
All of the employees of Paychex that makes Tom a millionaire, without state taxes all of those employees would be in exactly the same position?
He has never driven a road, had a fire, visited a cultural institution?
He is an island and needs the help of no one.

barney — not to speak for Eisenbart, but…no, Golisano owes the state nothing. The arena deal was agreed to, not forced on anyone — and it was with an ownership structure that pre-dated Golisano’s involvement with the team.

Are you suggesting that, despite paying $13k a day in taxes, he somehow still owes for driving on the same roads you and I drive on for (at least in my case) a lot less per day? Really? Or does the Thruway somehow flip over and become a velvet carpet just for his car?

His departure makes it marginally more difficult for the rest of us who stay — either because we choose to or we don’t have the wherewithall to leave. He said his decision was not intended as a message to state government. Well, it should be nonetheless.

I hope he does take Pigeon with him…maybe that should be his penance for leaving. But, I worry most that posts and comments like these will give the state an idea for another fee — an exit fee. Pay to stay…pay to go.

I’ve got some calls out to various organizations to get a total on the state income tax incentives that Paychex has benefited from all these years. Also, any PILOT incentives, property tax reductions, or other business assistance or corporate handouts Golisano has received for his various businesses in New York.

Unfortunately, property tax breaks have become a necessity in WNY for the area to remain even close to competitive in attracting business. For example, in Tampa, Florida, the property tax millage rate for a commercial building in 2008 was 19.52 (for every 1,000 in property value, the owner pays 19.52 in property tax – this takes into account the 4% discount for paying early). In downtown buffalo, the millage rate was 37.96. If you happen to be on the pedestrian mall, add an additional 4.28 for a total of 42.24 – more than double. Williamsville was a bargain at 33.81.

If you were a business owner, where would you go? NY where we ‘tax the rich’ at 8.97% and have double the property tax + an 8.75% sales tax? Or Tampa, with no income tax, a 7% sales tax and 1/2 the property tax. It’s not rocket science.

@ mike — sorry, no government paycheck for me. Private sector my whole life, and I am currently fortunate enough to have a good job. So, that keeps me here. My kids and extended family keeps me here. Not that any of that is any of your fucking business.

I was simply responding to the thought that Golisano, or anyone else who decides to leave, somehow owes the great state of NY anything. By that reasoning, some like me (and, presumably, you) who pays a lot less in taxes than Golisano, must have a whopper of a bill waiting for us.

Sorry mike — a correction. In the interest of full disclosure, I DID work for the state of New York for about 12 weeks, about 25 years ago. It wasn’t for me, so I quit. No severance, no pension, no carryover benefits. And, I collected nine weeks of unemployment when I lost a job, about 30 years ago.

I hope when you do your number crunching….you will add up the number of employees in NYS that have been on the payroll of Paychex since 1971.

After that factor in how much in income and property tax Paychex pays to NYS and present that with “benefits” and tax breaks you want to bitch about.

While you are at it…add in the tally of how much he has donated to the Rochester and WNY region. My tally is around $75-$90M without the cost of purchasing the Sabres.

So fucking petty are people that they simply can not admit that the region needs people like Golisano as a resident. I could do without his politics but he does more for the region in a month than the collective who of everyone who posts or comments on this blog in a decade.

He started Paychex with $3,000. Yes you read that right…. $3k and built it up to a massive company and gained personal wealth. Maybe if people were able to shelve their jealousy they would see this as something serious.

Oh and I doubt he is going to be the last Millionaire or Billionaire to leave in 2009.

I doubt Florida will be without an income tax for long. The whole state is a giant pyramid scheme built on real estate taxes.

As long as the real estate market was strong, Floridians could enjoy no income tax, which itself enticed more suckers “buy in.” Now that the ridiculous speculation has gone bust, few are buying in and the state is broke with no mechanism for extracting wealth from its citizens. With such a large percentage of the population unproductive retirees and real-estate speculators, I doubt the efficacy of an income tax anyway.

Golisano’s tax breaks, etc., for his businesses are irrelevant. He has no choice but to do business within the corrupt system set up by the government. Anything less would put him at a competitive disadvantage that he didn’t create.

Kudos to him for “moving” to keep more of what is rightfully his property.

Chris i have been wondering that for years, how can they not have taxes? You mean just because we have to buy salt and snow plows our taxes are that much higher. I refuse to believe that the florida is any less corrupt than new york, but do they have the IDA’s ?
@ pirate at least hank and I use our real names and don’t hide behind some idiot name, so this makes us wonder what your agenda is when it comes to sticking up for Sloma, Ross, Burmister and all the other clowns in the Niagara county majority.

mike — would it be better if I just used my first name in my posts? Would saying that my name is sally or lucy or bob or fred somehow make it more credible? Kind of like “mike?” If I stuck my head out the window right now and yelled “hey, mike” would be the only person to turn around? I have my reasons for using this silly moniker, just as I’m sure you do. If you think that makes me less credible, well, I guess I’ll just have to live with the shame.

Again, yes…I am a Niagara County resident, registered GOP, who sometimes supports local GOPers on other blogs. Most often not, but sometimes. I voted for Obama, but not Spitzer. I believe you have previously referred to me as a shill. Oh, and the current state of my golf game is quite ugly. Anything else?

You still haven’t told me how much I would owe this great state if I were up and leave.

haterhade — politics aside, I too would like to have a chat with Golisano before he leaves about the quality of his hockey team. If he’s saving $13k a day by residing in FLA, maybe he could send some back to be invested in better defensemen.

@chris from OP. Yeah, there probably will be tax increases down the pike in FLA. But…. to get to the point where WNY is, property taxes would have to double, an up to 6.85% income tax would have to be implemented with a 8.97% tax on the ‘rich,’ as well as a significant increase on the sales tax. (and the ‘but it’s just less than a 2 cent increase’ argument is crap) I’d be willing to bet that 20 years from now, unless NY becomes insolvent, NY is *still* significantly higher taxed than Fla.

Also to William McHugh, as he discussed in Thursday’s Buffalo News. He also mentions his kids decided to leave (even though they’re not of that “certain age” BP refers to).

… after concluding a lengthy career in my hometown, I sought new employment and accepted a leadership position with a forward-looking and prosperous company headquartered in Tampa, Fla.

We continue to maintain a residence in Buffalo and plan to spend a portion of our retirement years there with friends and family who remained in town. However, we are beginning to think that we may be better off leaving the Empire State due to its overly aggressive tax policy.

… Our children …would be very lucky to live in Buffalo, however, they yearn for opportunity and, unfortunately, that is sadly lacking in the Queen City. They choose to live elsewhere, in more dynamic cities with an abundance of employers vying for their skills.

Why would those who make decisions about locating companies choose Buffalo, an area with such a confiscatory tax policy?

…When I lived in Western New York, I cofounded a company that eventually employed nearly 1,000 individuals. …

@ Chris, yep, I’m definitely not arguing that NYS taxes aren’t too high and WNY taxes aren’t waaay too high, but I’m saying that Floridians will probably be in for a real shock in the years to come.

And we get screwed because not only do we pay for our own salt and plows, we also pay to clean up after their hurricanes. I think anyone who chooses to live in the path of a hurricane should have to pay a special “stupid tax.”

On a completely different note, states like to find easy sources of income that don’t rely on the wealth of their people’s labor. Florida has real-estate transactions. Alaska and Wyoming have oil and gas. New York has millionaires and billionaires, and the state gambled that enough millionaires and billionaires see New York as a premium good that they are willing to pay for. And the legislature is right with a lot of them. Manhattan and the NYC suburbs provide a sylte of life that cannot be found anywhere else, and there are plenty rich that are willing to pay for that. On the other hand, Golisano was paying for the opportunity to live in Rochester…..

well if NY didn’t tax and spend at insanely high levels he likely would have stayed, or at least been more willing to stay
and remember, it’s not just the super wealthy that are leaving due to NY’s stupid politicians taxing us to death

Forgot to mention, also reported this week – these people should also say hi to Limbaugh, and to Golisano, the Riches, the McHughs, the City Mattress owners and front office employees, and as mike notes, the Benderson people, …

Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 3:53pm
Science First leaving Buffalo for N. Fla.
Business First of Buffalo

Science First/Starlab, a maker of science education equipment, will move its operations from Buffalo to Nassau County in northern Florida by the end of the year.

Science First/Starlab manufactures and markets items such as portable planetariums and water sampling equipment. The company was founded in 1960 and is in the third generation of family ownership.

Science First will bring 20 jobs to Nassau County, ranging from entry-level positions to engineering and technical support. The company expects to fill most positions locally, and expects to complete an

@ Pundit: If you don’t think having rich people in a state is important to its economy, cultural health, or prosperity, then you’re an idoit. We don’t have that many billionaires in NY that we can just write them off whenever we feel like it. We need to import them.

@ Geek: The PILOT info may be interesting, but is moot. All PILOT programs and IDA’s do is lower the cost of doing business in NY to the average for the rest of the country. Anyone who thinks companies are getting an unfair “break” haven’t lived in a state without the oppressive sales tax, property tax, income tax, union rules and regulation we have here.

The Golisano’s and Rich’s of the world would have a better case regarding NY’s over extended taxation if they didn’t take their money and move to a state that has no taxation. Any state that requires state taxes to be paid is overextended when compared to that.

Note the irony here, though. Mega-millionaires leaving NY – or any other state, for that matter – to live in a state where their goods and services are paid for by the $60,000/year New York schmucks who want to take their kids to Disneyworld. Socialism, indeed.

Some of you say “good riddance” to wealthy and influential folks who leave WNY.

You may not recall, and may not have heard of, the benefit it was to Buffalo to have civic leadership and leading citizens participate in and fund the many good things that went on in Buffalo during the last century.

Take a look at the names on some of the plaques in the Museum, the Historical Society, the Albright Knox, the Zoo–these rich folks, who owned many local businesses, were the the builders and the backbone of our community. Locally owned companies were philanthropical to the community. Now we have, who?–Bob Wilmers, Jeremy Jacobs … who else? The local companies are now owned in Shanghai and London and Omaha, and don’t care nearly as deeply for their “home town”.

Into the vacuum have stepped — the politicians. Instead of Charles Goodyear, Calvin Rand, Edward Butler we have … Byron Brown, William Stachowski, Steve Pigeon. We are not the richer for this, to be sure. Good riddance? I doubt it.

Paterson was HAPPY to see Limbaugh take his tax money and leave NY. He’d prefer to tax your sugared Pepsi. Fucking tool.

There was a time in this country that the very wealthy endowed the arts, and created foundations to help the poor and underpriviliged. True that most of that philanthopy had to do with the guilt of those giving it when so many had so little. But there were no federal income taxes until 1917, so they weren’t donating it to save on their taxes, they were neoclassical liberals.

They felt sorry for their fellow man, who wasn’t as well off, and their plight was usually not their fault. The diffference today is that liberals want to help their fellow man with SOMEONE ELSE’S MONEY, not their own.

My family income falls about 150K short of the 250K “RICH” level imposed by Obamaism. But I donated more to charity in the last 2 years that Vice President Biden did. I think that makes the point.

the real money in the payroll business is made on the “float”. he negotiates with the state after he collects your taxes as to when he is going to pay them all the your tax money. this allows him to invest these large somes of money in low risk investments which generally yield huge profits. So while paychex is collecting your tax money in NYS and investing it before he pays the state…he’s going to be riding his bike around naples .

Hank said:
“My family income falls about 150K short of the 250K “RICH” level imposed by Obamaism. But I donated more to charity in the last 2 years that Vice President Biden did. I think that makes the point.”
————-

Not until you give us your full name and the list of charities, so it can be verified.

Mega-millionaires leaving NY – or any other state, for that matter – to live in a state where their goods and services are paid for by the $60,000/year New York schmucks who want to take their kids to Disneyworld. Socialism, indeed.

@Frankie, it’s not only mega-millionaires. Those are whose moving decisions are reported in the media. But for similar reasons as Golisano, Rich, et al, it also happens with plain millionaires, wanna-be-some-day-millionaires, business owners (two examples I mentioned above), and professionals. Also who we never hear about are people in all of the above categories who decide against moving into this state in the first place.

And the alternative state isn’t only the home of Disney World, of course.

@RaChaCha, Is this a serious statement?

He has his hand in so many things in NY–I have trouble believing he’ll be able to stay in Florida enough to meet the residency requirements.

What exactly do you have in mind that he couldn’t either manage remotely (business) or simply drop as an interest (Sabres, Steve Pigeon, etc.) if it becomes too much hassle?

No it’s not, and i didn’t say it was. But for purposes of irony, i was commenting on the mega millionaires. This IS a thread about Tom Golisano, after all.

I will say this though. Say what you want about taxes, but i’ve got a weeks pay that says more people leave NY because of the weather than move because of the taxes. And given that increased taxes are as much a result OF people leaving as they are a reason FOR people leaving, this leads to problems. Your average person has no clue what the relative tax rates are from one area to the next. But you can bet your last penny that they know how the weather in one area compares to another. The vast majority of people i know who’ve left have gone to warmer climes. Coincidence? And frankly, most of those who’ve left, left before they even understood the concept of property taxes, let alone how one area’s compared to another’s. And other’s have left and told me they’ll never come back even though they’re in a field making far less where they are now than they could be making in NY.

So the fact that a Tom Golisano, or Bob Rich decided to leave the area shouldn’t be a surprise. And notice, they didn’t exactly move to Maine, or Alaska, or North Dakota. No, they left for Florida. Hell, if i were a mega millionaire who could live wherever i wanted, it wouldn’t be here, i’ll tell ya that. And it’s got nothing to do with the tax rates.

@ Frankie – You have a point. George Will has pointed out several times in his columns that the most relevant factor in determining the economic success and growth of a city, since the invention of air conditioning, is the warmth of the weather. Pheonix, Vegas, LA, San Diego, Miami, etc grew, and Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, etc shrank.

However. . . .

Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, and (most relevantly) Milwaukee have all grown while Buffalo shrank. I went to college in Milwaukee – its colder there in the winter than here. Its even colder in Minn. Milwaukee is still home to 10 Fortune 500 companies (Johnson Controls, Harley Davidson, among others). Now that M&T is 503, we officially have none. So what has Milwaukee done that we haven’t? And if you think taxes have nothing to do with it, you’re crazy.

“There was a time in this country that the very wealthy endowed the arts, and created foundations to help the poor and underpriviliged. True that most of that philanthopy had to do with the guilt of those giving it when so many had so little.”

How about they were just good people, Hank? They recognized that they made their money from the community so they gave back to the community.

Also, last I checked the very wealthy still endow the arts and create foundations to help the poor and underpriviliged.

Golisano did alot for WNY. I imagine he still will. If I had to guess, he was probably moving to Flordia at some point anyway, and that has only a little to do with the tax situation. After all, when you are a billionaire $13000 a day really isn’t all that much. I also suspect that bringing it up is more about making his point than the actual reason he is moving.

No doubt that NYS is a disaster from a tax standpoint. Golisano created a PAC to fund candidates who would try to address that. Because of his choice of individuals to run the PAC, it was a solid failure too. So, now he is possibly using the tax situation in NYS as a reason to do what he may have done anyway, so as to get people fired up about an issue he has been championing for along time.

Thanks to Tom Golisano for everything he has done (except reinvigorating Steve Pigeon) and for everything he will likely do in the future.

Prodigal-Son said;
“Milwaukee is still home to 10 Fortune 500 companies (Johnson Controls, Harley Davidson, among others). Now that M&T is 503, we officially have none. So what has Milwaukee done that we haven’t? And if you think taxes have nothing to do with it, you’re crazy.”
————————-

No argument from me – businesses do, in fact, know how one area’s tax rates compare with another. And yes, people do also go where jobs are just like they go where it’s warm. So it really is a combination of factors and NYS and WNY deserve their fair share of blame. They reacted late, and they reacted poorly to the situation. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that lowering the tax rates is going to fix the problem of people leaving or bring major companies into the area.

Buffalo grew into what it was because of it’s location. In today’s world, it’s location is wholly irrelevant and that’s not going to change.

@ Frankie – But Minneapolis and Milwaukee are in far worse positions, geographically (fly over country, away from other centers of influence), and are doing well. Our geography is not our destiny.

But I disagree wholeheartedly with your assertion that lower tax rates won’t bring back business. Why do IDA’s exist then? Why do off-shore tax havens exist? I was just down in Tennessee – they floated muni bonds to build a $1B VW factory, where no taxes will be paid by the company. Of course the taxes brought it there. Taxes are a driving force in business. When a profit margin is 10%, a 10% tax makes business unprofitable. Jobs leave then people leave. I feel like its the most obvious point in the world – how can people really not realize that NYS taxes drive out business.

Again, i’m not disagreeing with you. I’m only stating that our tax problems are as much a symptom created by other problems as they are a cause of the problem itself. And it’s an unfortunate cycle that self perpetuates. Solving the problems caused by high taxes is one thing. Simple, cut taxes. But solving the problems that have led to high taxes isn’t quite so simple.

And sure, you can point out cold cities that are thriving, but i can name cities that are taxed higher than Miami or Houston or Atlanta that aren’t experiencing the problems that Buffalo is. One of which is in NYS, oddly enough. So yes, high taxes are problematic and it’s ludicrous to think otherwise. But it’s also ludicrous to not realize that taxes are only a part of a much bigger problem.

guy starts a business in his basement, works hard and becomes a billionaire, donates tens of millions to institutions like niagara university, the rochester institute of techology the university of rochester and nazareth college, buys a lousy hockey team basically as a charity gift to the people of buffalo, who apparently enjoy hockey, isn’t actually moving anywhere but is having his legal residence changed for tax reasons to a house he has long owned in florida. like many successful retired businessmen.

yeah, let’s beat the hell out of him!!!!!

i must have been absent the day similar outrage was expressed here about the sainted (here) congressional candidate jon powers, who contributed nothing to wny, then fled the niagara frontier as soon as he lost his own party’s primary for yet another opportunity to suck at the public teat in washington d.c.

@Mike Hudson, Buffalonians have general disdain for any individual success (this blog is the paradigm). They generally hate those who succeed…unless it’s a ‘team’…which coincidentally coincides with their Nanny-Collective ideology.

Jealousy is rampant…schadenfreude is celebrated…good people are leaving…great people have left. But hey, keep voting Democrat and keep forming unions—they sure do seem to be working!

“They generally hate those who succeed…unless it’s a ‘team’…which coincidentally coincides with their Nanny-Collective ideology.”

We’ve seen that attitude directed towards pro athletes who play here for big salaries. Despite Jim Kelly leading the Bills to 4 superbowls, there were still people complaining about the money he made. The local media, too, seems to take great delight in digging up dirt on successful people around here.

“Buffalonians have general disdain for any individual success (this blog is the paradigm)”

Then Keller says this:

“But hey, keep voting Democrat and keep forming unions….”
———

Personally, i witness far more disdain (Keller’s comments as evidence) towards people trying to eke by on a $40,000/yr union backed income than i ever witnessed towards Jim Kelly or Tom Golisano. But that’s just me. By the way, Jim Kelly was in a union, so that would present a quandary.

This is like musical chairs where the people who get the seats find out it is really a Tax Milking Stool where the State get to milk the remaining people even more. $1000 in taxes between 10 people = $100 each. Play Musical Chairs which means more people leave the State, then we have $1500 in taxes (raised each year by these ‘do nothings’) between 8 people = $187.50. Thank God there are people stuck here – it will give me enough time to get out before it becomes a tax jail where nobody can leave and nobody wants to come here.

Some states are so well managed that they do NOT impose an oppressive income tax on their workers.
Why can’t NY have good state management?
NY isn’t even trying to eliminate the state income tax.
Nobody can stop the greedy tax spenders.
It is the job of the state to manage the money that comes in, not some forecast amount.
The State (and the Fed) should wait until the money comes in and then spend less than that so they can afford to pay down the debt and cut taxes.
Some day it will be time to stop punishing the job creators with higher taxes.
Higher taxes are repulsive to job creators.
Having NO income tax is attractive to job creators so let’s ATTRACT jobs.
People don’t like to have their money taken from them by force, especially when they get nothing in return.